For many Americans, this week has brought a “teachable moment” — and the lesson has been that the catastrophic insurance that you’ve been buying for years has been money poured down the drain. It’s called “junk insurance,” and it can’t be sold to you anymore — just like restaurants can’t save money by selling you fish that’s been left out in the sun for three days, even if they batter it and put so much salt and ranch dressing on it that you can’t taste the rottenness until hours later, when you go home and throw it up.

That sort of thing is illegal now. You’re welcome. Stop complaining about having had to give it up.

[T]he 6 percent of humans likely to lose their plans and pay more constitute millions of Americans, and that even a small number of them can talk to the media about how horrid the experience is. What they need is a long trench warfare campaign of fact-checking and, occasionally, apologizing. Michael Hiltzik, for example, has reported out the tale of Deborah Cavallaro, a Los Angeles woman spiriting around conservative-leaning shows to explain how Obamacare killed her plan.

Her current plan, from Anthem Blue Cross, is a catastrophic coverage plan for which she pays $293 a month as an individual policyholder. It requires her to pay a deductible of $5,000 a year and limits her out-of-pocket costs to $8,500 a year. Her plan also limits her to two doctor visits a year, for which she shoulders a copay of $40 each. After that, she pays the whole cost of subsequent visits… at her age, she’s eligible for a good “silver” plan for $333 a month after the subsidy — $40 a month more than she’s paying now. But the plan is much better than her current plan — the deductible is $2,000, not $5,000. The maximum out-of-pocket expense is $6,350, not $8,500. Her co-pays would be $45 for a primary care visit and $65 for a specialty visit — but all visits would be covered, not just two.

Is that better than her current plan? Yes, by a mile.

But cutting through the fog of the Cavallaro story took several days, and she’s going to have a lot of company.

Conisder the case of Diane Barrette, a 56-year-old woman from Winter Haven, Fla. Her story was featured in this CBS News report and endlessly echoed on the Internet. She was upset because Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida was canceling her $54-a-month “GoBlue plan 91” and offering to replace it with a $591-a-month “Blue Options Essential plan.”

Sounds terrible—except that Barrette’s expiring policy is a textbook example of a junk plan that isn’t real health insurance at all. If she had ever tried to use it for anything more than an occasional doctor visit or inexpensive prescription, she would have ended up with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical debt.

The plan pays only the first $50 of doctor visits, leaving Ms. Barrette to pay the rest. Specialist visits can cost several hundred dollars.

Only the first $15 of a prescription is covered. Some prescriptions can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month

The plan only pays for hospitalization for “complications of pregnancy,” which are unlikely given Ms. Barrette’s age and in any event only the first $50 is covered.

It pays $50 for a mammogram that can cost several hundred dollars, and only pays $50 apiece for advanced imaging tests such as MRIs and CT scans and then only when used for osteoporosis screening.

“She’s paying $650 a year to be uninsured,” Karen Pollitz, an insurance expert at the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, said. “I have to assume that she never really had to make much of a claim under this policy. She would have lost the house she’s sitting in if something serious had happened. I don’t know if she knows that.”

Okay, but can’t we be outraged that Ms. Barrette will have to fork over $591 a month for a replacement plan? Actually, no, because she has other and better options than the costly plan Blue Cross Blue Shield wants to put her in. She get real insurance that covers all essential health benefits for well under $200 a month.

She has said her income is about $30,000 a year. It would be nice to look up her choices on HealthCare.gov,which is running the marketplace in Florida. But you can’t do that without actually applying for coverage.

So, using tools available through eHealthinsurance.com (I’ll walk you through this useful resource tomorrow), I determined that she qualifies for a premium subsidy of $320 a month. She can use that to purchase a Humana Direct Silver 4600/6300 plan for $165 a month.

The administration released a report in December 2011 that explained how well the individual insurance market covered those essential benefits. It found: 62 percent didn’t cover maternity care; 34 percent didn’t cover substance abuse services, 18 percent didn’t cover mental health services; and 9 percent didn’t cover prescription drugs. There are also no annual caps and no lifetime limits under the ACA, which almost eliminates the risk of going bankrupt because of medical costs in a way that didn’t exist before the law.

That’s why experts have routinely said that you can’t make an “apples-to-apples” comparison between 2013 and 2014 insurance premiums, because the plans being offered now are much more robust.

And speaking of premiums, the numbers suggest that many of these people who might receive a cancellation letter will have access to the substantial financial help that Obamacare offers.

To be clear, nobody has done an analysis yet of what people who have received a cancellation notice are going to pay for coverage under the ACA. There’s just no way to do that. But we can take a pretty educated guess by looking at the breakdown of the health insurance market provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

People making less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level qualify for either tax credits or expanded Medicaid (which, to be clear, has to cover the same set of 10 benefits that private plans have to cover). According to Kaiser, about 60 percent people in the individual insurance market (more than 10 million) have an income within that range, which leaves the other 40 percent (about 4.4 million) who don’t and won’t qualify for help.

So mash this all up — it’s an imperfect science — and Gruber’s prediction that about 3 percent of Americans are actually at risk of ‘losing’ under Obamacare holds up pretty well.

All of this was noted, by the way, back in 2010 when the law passed!

So don’t think that you’re a loser because you have to get real insurance. You’re just not eating battered rotten fish in a strongly flavored salty sauce.

This is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about that or whatever else you’d like within reasonable bounds of decency and decorum. The Dearthwatch appears below!

Rumor has it that the Register is now only hiding things for seven days rather than for three months or for eternity, which if true is a good step. Regardless, the Orange Lady seems to have more or less settled in a bit more than 2000 ranks lower then when it started. Acceptable losses? Maybe.

We had our best month since January — but are down 100,000 ranks? I suspect that maybe the Alexa algorithm is a little behind the times….

About Greg Diamond

Prolix worker's rights and government accountability attorney and General Counsel of CATER. His anti-corruption work in Anaheim infuriated the Building Trades and Teamsters in spring 2014, leading them to work with the Democratic Party of Orange County Chair and other co-conspirators (who had long detested the internal oversight his presence provided) to remove him from the position of DPOC North Vice Chair of in violation of party rules and any semblance of due process. He also runs for office sometimes.
Unless otherwise specifically stated, none of his writings prior to that lawless putsch ever spoke for the Democratic Party at the local, county, state, national, or galactic level. He tries to either suppress or openly acknowledge his partisan, issue, ideological, and "good government" biases in most of his writing here. If you have a question about any particular writing, just ask him about it and (unless you are an pseudonymous troll) he will probably answer you at painful length.
He lives in Beautiful Bountiful Brea, but while he may brag about it he generally doesn't blog about it. A family member works as a campaign treasurer for candidates including Wendy Gabriella in AD-73; he doesn't directly profit from that relatively small compensation and it doesn't affect his coverage. He does advise some campaigns informally and (except where noted) without compensation.

110 Comments

The junk insurers could bring their insurance up to standards, just as the restaurant that serves spoiled fish could do. They just chose not to. That’s no more Obama’s fault than passing a regulation against serving spoiled fish is the government’s fault. Sorry if you really have a thing for spoiled fish.

“Fish” = access to medical care, which you’d get through emergency rooms if uninsured. “Rotten fish with batter and sauce to cover the taste” is junk insurance.

As John Roberts said: it’s a tax. It’s a tax to keep you out of the emergency room at public expense when you need it, because society makes the policy decision that it doesn’t want to let poor people die in the street — because that’s unsubtle and might foment a revolution.

As it stands right now the ACA isn’t a practical working plan. Simply, the math doesn’t work. Math isn’t political, it knows no ideology, it simply is what it is and the numbers don’t lie or make false promises.

When the public realizes, en masse, that they have been lied to and figure out what it really costs, there will be recoil the likes of which you can’t imagine yet.

I don’t want your damn fish, I want to catch my own, if your ilk would stop pissing in the water I could and would do just fine without your helping me “know” what I want and need. It’s pathetic your side seems to think they know what I want or need and that I am incapable of any kind of informed understanding or ability to make a rational decision on my own.

That condescension and belittling of my feelings, along with the lies and costs, is what will kill the albatross and hang it around your necks.

I hope the Albatross bib won’t interfere with your abilities to consume the mass quantities of Corvus that will be showing up on your collective plates soon.

Yeah, buckled me seat belt but never got into an accident. Poor me. And I never drive with passengers but I still have an air bag on that side because it’s in the standard package. Life sure is unfair.

Hi folks…back from a tremendously busy second half of tax season. Hope to get back on OJB a bit now.

Some of my clients have been frustrated with the changes. Some are perfectly happy with the coverage they have and they are very bright people that understand their coverage- not all of these plans that are being dropped are “junk policies”. There are plenty of policies, especially HSA type policies which are excellent for the young and healthy and touted as a great thing for many people in the past years, that offer coverage that is adequate for the user but unfortunatley may not qualify under ACA.

Not everyone feels that someone else should tell them which type of car is best to drive…and that is what a lot are feeling. Yes, there are rules to minimum safety standards for new cars (as there should be), but they most often do not require retrofits to old cars (i.e. airbags, shoulder belts, etc…). Even more important is that people understand the safety standards of cars…usually the year that they come out.

As for Ms. Cavalaro above, it seemed to be working for her needs. And she is entitled to feel mad about being forced to move off of something that was meeting her needs. When I look the policy changes, I would not say that it is better by a mile…it may be better for some but not all by a mile and she is likely more concerned about being told what she must have instead of the pure economics. $40/mo can be a lot of money for folks. The $40/mo may not actually get her any additional received benefits and in fact could actually cost her more than just the premium if she goes to the doctor just two times per year. If she is healthy, she may not actually need that additional coverage and can bank the extra cost into a savings account (i.e. sinking fund from a budget perspective) that would be available for her in the future if she needed it.

The bigger thing that I am concerned about is the subsidy for her…her income is variable so her subsidy may disappear. Yes, she would then be making more so hopefully she would have the additional money to pay the cost of her $200/mo subsidy…that is real money though and even worse, she may not know her income until late in the year and could actually be paying back front end subsidies if her income does go up. Very easily she could be looking at not just a $40/mo increase but a $240/mo (almost $2900/yr). We don’t know what her income is, but let’s assume it is $40K…if we increased taxes on someone who was making that type of money by $480 to $2900 per year and promised them that the government services would be better, even though she may not use them, I can imagine that there would be some on this board who would be crying “foul”. Obviously, on the other side, there are those who also would say that they should just adjust their budget to accommodate the increase, so hopefully everyone can at least understand both sides here.

Additionally, the network available to her may not include the doctors that she likes. This is a huge deal. Anyone that has ever coordinated a network change at work for a group knows that this is such a huge thing- generally more so for women than men from my experience.

Both of these items I have hear from my clients as concerns. Concerns that are valid in my opinion. Concerns that hopefully can be overcome with a little work and education. Would her silver plan be better than her current plan by a mile? Only if she uses the benefits and feels that it is better…

Employers have been dealing with this also to a lesser extent also…thinking that you are providing something that is better to the employee group (and I am talking about employers who truly want to provide better benefits) only to find out what is important to the powers that be is not all that important to the employee.

i am not part of the unwashed. i have a very nice health insurance plan. but because i have opted out of things like maternity care and other things that simply are not part of my life, my policy has been cancelled. the president did lie and that is the underlying problem.

and if we were in our twenties or thirties or had not taken steps to ensure that there were no more little devilles running around, i would agree with you but to make us buy coverage for something that can not occure makes no sense

Do you make use of public education, willie? And yet you pay taxes — I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here — on that as well, right? This is a tax; John Roberts said so. You’re not supposed to benefit personally from every single tax, unless you’re something like Monsanto or Boeing or Exxon. It’s part of the price you pay for a civilized society in which people don’t storm your compound and eat you.

Boutwell

Posted November 2, 2013 at 5:49 PM

Diamond…are you really saying that health insurance is a tax due to the ruling by the SCOTUS? Are you sure that they did not say that the penalty/fine for not having the insurance was a tax?

Greg Diamond

Posted November 2, 2013 at 6:05 PM

The mandate of health insurance is a tax. You can think of that as the penalty and fine (which does not lead to liens or levies anyway) or the mandate itself, which is justified under the government’s power of taxation.

My understanding is that in such circumstances companies are simply canceling existing policies and enrolling people into new ones that fit the regulations, for little or no difference in cost (beyond the standard yearly rise in premiums that occurs anyway.) Right, in your case — or are they refusing your future business?

i wish that was the case. they are essentially gutting the policy and making us go through the entire process again. and it is happening to a lot of people our age and in our financial circumstance.

i understand the need with regard to health insurance in this country and i understand the goal of what obamacare wants to accomplish. the problem is that they are not telling the truth with regard to the facts and the consequences (and, yes, bush and chaney did the same thing and are just as bad)

What “entire process”? Are they asking you for your pre-existing conditions this time?

They aren’t, right? And why do you think that is?

Boutwell

Posted November 2, 2013 at 5:51 PM

Applying for insurance is much more cumbersome than saying yes to a renewal. Something have gotten easier (i.e. no pre-existing conditions) while others have gotten more difficult. Regardless, when a new policy is applied for, it is in most case more work than a renewal of an existing policy.

Greg Diamond

Posted November 2, 2013 at 6:07 PM

So as you set the elimination of the ban on denial for pre-existing conditions up against the marginally greater difficulty of a one-time new policy application, do you think that it’s easier or harder overall? I think that not fretting about pre-existing conditions makes things considerably easier. You agree?

I just dropped into one of my favorite eateries – HB’s Philly Grill. The Edinger-Goldenwest branch. There are three, another on further south on Beach Blvd, and one in Seal Beach, all owned by John Carpenter, who’s an off-and-on piano student of mine. I just stepped in for a meatball sandwich, hoping John would be there, which he was, say hi and remind him about my concert. We’d never talked about politics before, but the first thing he said was, Hey, what do you think about Obamacare? Why can’t we just have Single Payer in this country? It was refreshing to hear from a regular guy, a small businessman.

Boutwell

Posted November 2, 2013 at 6:32 PM

I can speak from my personal experience as a business owner and adviser…health insurance renewals are quite a bit more difficult this year than in years past. From what clients are telling me, they are feeling the same. From what health insurance brokers are telling me, they are feeling the same. I believe that most of these difficulties will be one time items, which I can live with (I am not an eliminate ACA at all costs type), but unfortunately it has been much more difficult due to the changes we have seen. Actually, the problems will likely not be just this year but also next due to so many businesses utilizing early renewals, so we will be dealing with it next year along with the expiration of the 1 year push of the business mandate.

If I were someone who had a pre-existing condition on an individual plan, it would be a no-brainer which of course you should already know.

Boutwell

Posted November 2, 2013 at 6:34 PM

Vern…so, what are the thoughts of a regular small business guy (which I am also btw…hoping to be a regular large business guy someday)?

um.. like i said … well John didn’t talk much about Obamacare, didn’t really complain about it, he was just confused and angry that we couldn’t simply have single payer like civilized countries do. I’m not sure how he heard about the idea but I’m glad it’s getting out there more. All I could do was explain to him what he probably also already knew, the awesome power health insurance and big pharma have on our legislative process.

Boutwell

Posted November 2, 2013 at 8:04 PM

Ah got it…totally misunderstood. I thought he asked you about Obamacare and you responded with why can’t we just have single payer? Understand now.

“Sometimes one sentence is all you need to illuminate a complicated issue. In this case, the sentence comes from Pam Kehaly, president of Anthem Blue Cross in California, quoting a letter she received from a young woman facing a 50 percent health insurance rate hike under the Affordable Care Act. The quote appears in a recent LA Times article. She said, “I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it.””
OC Register

Unfortunately those rate increases seem to still be happening and likely will continue at least on the employer provided plans…that is why so many businesses are opting for early renewal. Early renewal rate increases have been substantially less than Jan 2014 renewals.

We may very well see the destruction of the most progressive program by government in this country in 50 years undone, by mismanagement and political posturing.

I can only hope that the administration has a better take on things that it appears. Saturday AM reports from KCBS in San Francisco had scathing reviews. You don’t get much more Obama friendly than Marin…………..

The website, was forgivable, the coming “cancellation wave” story, will be really hard to overcome and may become a torpedo in the public persona that is AHCA. I am really disappointed. The Obama administration did NOT need to be experts in healthcare, they needed to be experts in implementing healthcare. If the documented reports from congress are to be believed, they fucked the goat on this thing.

Let’s hope that they can weather storm that is going to be the Skalleywag faction of the population. I am not sure that’s possible. FIRE the secretary of HHS Monday morning on National TV. Stop talking about Apple and for Christ’s sake stop the cheesy marketing with “victims” who have signed up!

“Healthcare plan” has some meaning — and those junk plans (literally and figuratively) didn’t qualify as such.

Here’s another common sense tip — when someone says that “people should be able to marry the person they want,” it doesn’t mean advocating men going back to being able to abduct women and marry them against their will. Underlying such statements is “as consistent with law” — and it has been established for 44 months now that these junk plans would not be consistent with the law.

It could have been communicated better, but society can fairly decide that given the agreement on mandatory policies people shouldn’t be able to evade that requirement with junk policies that will still land them in emergency rooms for primary care. It’s similar to the idea that putting a rope around you and the seat your driving in won’t be considered to qualify as a seat belt.

“Junk Plan” is a term of art and definitely open to interpretation. There are plenty of plans that may not meet all the requirements but have been labeled “junk” when in fact they have served those who have used their services very well. It served the purpose. A lot of these plans were part of the insureds healthcare plans and the plan was fine. A lot of HSA’s which a few years back were touted as great, may be considered “junk” now…strange.

My problem with everyone jumping all of this statement is more so that it is going to make politicians even less likely to make a “statement”. There is subjectivity to most all statements and politicians already have a hard enough time saying what they think yet alone throwing in that it has to be correct 100% of the time.

Greg,
I can still legally operate a pre ’64 auto, that never came with seat-belts. I can sell you or anyone else that used car, without seat-belts, it’s perfectly legal. If I don’t drive I don’t have to purchase auto insurance. The two subjects have virtually nothing in common.

The employer discounted healthcare policy my wife and child were covered by, has been canceled. It did cover at least part of the ER costs. It was what we could afford and it worked for us. It wasn’t junk.

Her canceled policy costs us under $300 per month, Rx plan and even had minimal dental and vision, not much but some and a cheap term life. Co-pay of $30/visit, $150 ER, $500 deduction for major medical, not great but we could manage that if needed. Shopping for their minimal Rx needs was easy. There’s no way I can come close to that under the new and “improved” ACA approved California Care.

Your expert opinion of what constitutes “junk” is faulty. Labeling all of the policies that are not up the “standards” of ACA, those that would be unprofitable or those that have been modified in the last few years and are being terminated is faulty, wrong and slanted completely to your political desires.

The ACA roll-out is a train wreck of stupendous proportions. It needs to be stopped and the Democratic party OWNS IT. The real tragedy is that you will make every excuse in the world for their good intentions. All the while maintaining that it’s for the greater social good and you mean well, but it will not work.

Instead of bitching about the teabaggers gumming up the works, you all should have allowed them to derail this train wreck and blamed it all on them. Good Lord, what a mess!

I caught some whiffs of the story but no proof and then saw the Huffpost story on the Obama-Reid meeting last summer when they planned all this crap out and that confirmed it. I was actually going to admit they were a hell of a lot smarter about it all than I gave them credit for prior but…

Their biggest problem was they were too busy trying to screw the Republicans and too damn dumb to get their own real jobs done. The Media played it all, just like they were scripted, instead of doing the investigative work and finding out what really was and wasn’t being taken care of with the ACA roll out. (Pay not attention to the man behind the curtain!) What the hell, they all make union scale+.

This could very well be the greatest and most expensive administrative failure in history. The Democratic party OWNS THIS! All of them in the Congress who held with Harry are complicit.

The Democrats have shown themselves to be very good at politics and really expensive as administrators. Their real downfall will be when everyone figures out how much it’s going to cost. Then they are going to see all the good doctors and hospitals not take them. The hospitals and doctors that are willing to work for less are going to be over worked and under paid, increased wait time in the queue, as the British say, will increase, waiting for rationed services like other socialized countries do.

My guess is the midterm elections are going to be a blood bath and that is beginning to dawn on everyone just about now.

Carl,
First off, if your wife’s employer canceled her/your insurance that is on them NOT Obamacare.
Secondly, I’d like to know if you’re being honest with us and have actually gone on the exchange. A family of four in Ca. is eligible for subsidies on an income of up to $94,000.
And lastly, there is NO program in the history of the world where everyone comes out ahead and it is childish to think that is possible. Yes, there will be a small percentage of americans who will pay more (and get more) for health insurance under the ACA, but that will be offset by a larger percentage who will have decent, affordable, comprehensive health insurance.

You seem to be under the delusion that the millions of americans who haven’t had health insurance or were under-insured didn’t affect you. The millions of medical bankruptcies alone have had tremendous repercussions for our economy. Those bankruptcies just didn’t affect the person declaring bankruptcy but everyone down the economic food chain. Furthermore, allowing millions of americans to go without medical care is frankly, IMMORAL.

The republicans aren’t offering any solutions (in fact, the plans they have mentioned would dump millions more off their insurance, shhh it’s a secret) and have done everything possible to hurt, hinder and destroy the ACA. When Medicare part D rolled out it was a MESS, but even though the Dems opposed it they worked to fix it. Why aren’t you asking why the Republicans aren’t helping to fix the ACA.

I also wonder where the outrage is from our oh-so-moral conservative friends on this blog to the 47 MILLION people who just had their food stamps cut. Howling to the moon about a few million better off people having to pay more for health care coverage but mum or cheering on millions more left to go hungry. That in a nutshell is the conservative mindset in the US today and that is truly sickening.

Carl Overmyer

Posted November 3, 2013 at 11:16 AM

We are a family of 3, in case you didn’t get it, myself, my wife and my daughter. We are not eligible for any type of taxpayer funded discounts, just barely. The termination of the employer sponsored insurance IS a direct result of the ACA, no mater how you would like to spin that.

“Why aren’t you asking why the Republicans aren’t helping to fix the ACA.”

Because, I know the answer. Neither the White House nor the Senate are willing to fix it. Out of Harry’s own mouth as reported on HuffPost.

“We just both came to the conclusion that the time had ended to be taken in by these crazy people,” Reid said. “The president said, ‘I’m not going to negotiate.’ I said, ‘I’m not going to negotiate.’ And we didn’t.”

The environment of constructive engagement is not present in DC or Sacramento.

Making the lack of quality ideas from the opposition as your argument is pretty weak. Either you can execute or you can’t. That’s the executives job description. Deflecting to another outrage is pretty weak too.

anon

Posted November 3, 2013 at 12:21 PM

Carl, when you state that the administration was unwilling to negotiate, and you imply that what they meant was that they are unwilling to talk about changes to the ACA, you know damn well you’re being disingenuous. What the administration (and Harry Reid) was unwilling to do was negotiate the ACA IN CONJUNCTION WITH A DEBT CEILING/BUDGET DEAL.

At breakfast this morning I noticed that Aunt Jemima pancake syrup has changed the logo image of Aunt Jemima. I don’t know when this change took place. She appears to be a slimmed down version without the headscarf and without the neck kerchief. In other words her appearance is not so much as a domestic servant – just an observation.

WaPo:
“HealthCare.gov: How political fear was pitted against technical needs”

In May 2010, two months after the Affordable Care Act squeaked through Congress, President Obama’s top economic aides were getting worried. Larry Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, and Peter Orzag, head of the Office of Management and Budget, had just received a pointed four-page memo from a trusted outside health adviser. It warned that no one in the administration was “up to the task” of overseeing the construction of an insurance exchange and other intricacies of translating the 2,000-page statute into reality.

Summers, Orzag and their staffs agreed. For weeks that spring, a tug of war played out inside the White House, according to five people familiar with the episode. On one side, members of the economic team and Obama health-care adviser Zeke Emanuel lobbied for the president to appoint an outside health reform “czar” with expertise in business, insurance and technology. On the other, the president’s top health aides — who had shepherded the legislation through its tortuous path on Capitol Hill and knew its every detail — argued that they could handle the job.

In the end, the economic team never had a chance: The president had already made up his mind, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid. Obama wanted his health policy team — led by Nancy-Ann De­Parle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform — to be in charge of the law’s arduous implementation. Since the day the bill became law, the official said, the president believed that “if you were to design a person in the lab to implement health care, it would be Nancy-Ann.”

Your link doesn’t correspond to the article. If I were a republican I would accuse you of being a heinous liar, incompetent weasel and a devil worshipping satanist hell bent on destroying America, but because I’m a liberal I’ll just ask you for the correct link.

According to the new book “Double Down,” in which journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann chronicle the 2012 presidential election, President Barack Obama told his aides that he’s “really good at killing people” while discussing drone strikes.

Peter Hamby of The Washington Post reported the moment in his review of the book.
The claim by the commander-in-chief is as indisputable as it is grim.

Oh fer chrissake…are you SERIOUSLY claiming that some marines and other service members don’t speak like that, and, on top of that, that we don’t celebrate them for doing so?

skallywag

Posted November 3, 2013 at 1:06 PM

We are not talking about “some average soldier” here we are talking about the President of the United States. And his manner of speaking is a window into his soul – it is a disgusting view through that window.

anon

Posted November 3, 2013 at 1:29 PM

Really? You can “assure” us that no sniper has ever expressed pride in his ability to kill?

How is it that you can make that iron-clad claim?

Got any proof? Or are you just talking out your arse, like you’re so often prone to doing?

I’ll also point out that Bush doomed himself to the “cowboy” label when he was stupid enough to use the wild west poster “wanted: dead or alive” reference. It wasn’t because he said something like what Obama said.

here is the underlying problem, in our business lives we have an obligation, actually a fiduciary obligation when it comes to attorneys like greg and musicians like vern, to tell our clients the truth, regardless of whether that news is good or bad. obama, like bush, clinton, and nixon, to name a few, has not, and does not, do that. if, as citizens, we are told the truth by both parties, then we can deal with those realities. but when, as here, the truth is, at best, shaded and, at worse, completely misrepresented, that is where the anger, the disappointment and the disillusionment come from
the other night on the daily show, charles krauthamer said we have to do two things, and here i am paraphrasing. first, we have to acknowledge the successes of liberal/progressive programs over the past fifty years in raising living standards and helping make sure that the vulnerable in our society are taken care of. but second, we have to acknowledge that those matrixes do not work anymore and we have to have a reasoned discussion about what to do and how to get there. even jon stweart agreed

To demonstrate how bad some people want this to fail, I just watched some maniac from North Carolina suggest that people purposefully log on to the site, overwhelming it and causing it to crash today, thus give “Matt and Savanna” some fodder for Monday morning.

anon: “Really? You can “assure” us that no sniper has ever expressed pride in his ability to kill? How is it that you can make that iron-clad claim? Got any proof? Or are you just talking out your arse, like you’re so often prone to doing?”

I never made that claim – or anything like it. You make up shit to knock it down – just like Pedroza and Mill. I will ignore your ignorant arguments in the future.

I did not say say that “No” American soldier sniper has spoken in that manner. I am saying that that is not the ethos of the American soldier sniper. Snipers , in addition to rigorous tactical and physical training, must undergo a psychological examination. A sniper candidate who would state that he/she is “good at killing people” I believe would get a real close examination.

No Lies that I’m aware of, it’s a direct quote from the Huffpost story. Argue with them not me. Spin it however you want.
It’s certainly is attributed to Harry Reid and it is germane to the conversation.

I try to approach this very carefully and not use sources that are certain to be questionable, like if for some reason I might quote something from Newsmax or Fox.

Is the ACA a product of the Democrats, YES!
Was there any meaningful negotiations prior to it’s passage, NO!
Hell, nobody knew what was in it. Nancy said, ” We have to pass it to know what’s in it.”
So, now it the Republicans Fault it’s a mess? NO, that goes to the executive branch who is responsible for that failure to execute!

Go ahead and call me a liar. You can’t revise this history, as much as you might like to.

Carl, you didn’t ONLY mention Harry Reid. You also mentioned the White House. Please…I’m not the one spinning.

By the way, would you characterize over 40 votes in the House of Representatives to completely repeal the ACA as a “willingness to negotiate”?

When you know that not a SINGLE Republican in the House of Representatives is going to vote for a bill, CAN there be, to use your word, “meaningful” negotiations?

Carl Overmyer

Posted November 3, 2013 at 3:12 PM

Yes, I did, as did Harry Reid in HIS quote.
I’m NOT spinning anything. It’s a direct quote, how is that spinning anything?

Is it not the executive branches responsibility to execute the ACA, as passed by the Democratic controlled Congress? YES OR NO?

So far, that execution has been a sheer and utter failure of catastrophic proportions. Or can you spin that some other way?

If you can’t get anyone in the Senate or the Executive branch to sit down and even talk about an impending train wreck, that you clearly see coming, what else can you do, but try to stop it? I never said I thought they did a good job or even supported the shutdown, I might however understand it, which is very different. Did you not see me say that both parties bear blame for all of this…? While you and others blamed only one side of the aisle. Is your attention span really that short?

I didn’t support the govt shutdown as much as you and others tried to make it sound like I did, I was simply pointing to the obvious causes. I still am, as well as pointing out the obvious responsibility for creating the environment in which it came to pass.

I’m sorry if you think that’s spin, I might suggest it’s your point of observation rather than the scenery that’s spinning here.

Democrats wrote it, passed it, and have failed to execute it.
No spin just fact.

Now you blame the Republicans for NOT fixing it as a cause for its failure? That’s spin.

anon

Posted November 3, 2013 at 3:52 PM

And you took those quotes and suggested to us that they are not willing to negotiate the ACA.

That is not true. What the President said, very clearly, is that he was not willing to negotiate the ACA IN CONJUNCTION WITH A DEBT CEILING/BUDGET DEAL. Do you not get that distinction? Of course you do…you’re just pretending it doesn’t exist.

Now, you can go on and on like this, suggesting that he isn’t willing to negotiate the ACA, but it’s a lie. You’re spreading a lie. And I pointed you to a story on foxnews.com that supports my contention.

End of story.

Moving on…can you show me where I suggested that the “failure” (your word, not mine) of the ACA is the Republican’s fault? Please, for god’s sake, do not ascribe positions to me that I have not taken! What I suggested to you is that the Republicans have shown no desire to “fix” the ACA (expanding on the “willingness to negotiate” theme), as evidenced by their 40+ votes to repeal it.

I have also made no statement about the Democrats role in passing the ACA, or about the shutdown, or who’s responsible for executing the ACA. I’ve focused on your statement about willingness to negotiate. So please, spare me all the other tangential issues that you think amount to a rebuttal of what I’ve specifically said.

My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.

My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits.

Countless hours searching for non-exchange plans have uncovered nothing that compares well with my existing coverage. But the greatest source of frustration is Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health-insurance exchange and, by some reports, one of the best such exchanges in the country. After four weeks of researching plans on the website, talking directly to government exchange counselors, insurance companies and medical providers, my insurance broker and I are as confused as ever. Time is running out and we still don’t have a clue how to best proceed.

Two things have been essential in my fight to survive stage-4 cancer. The first are doctors and health teams in California and Texas: at the medical center of the University of California, San Diego, and its Moores Cancer Center; Stanford University’s Cancer Institute; and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The second element essential to my fight is a United Healthcare PPO (preferred provider organization) health-insurance policy.

Since March 2007 United Healthcare has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive, and it has never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team. The company pays a fair price to the doctors and hospitals, on time, and is responsive to the emergency treatment requirements of late-stage cancer. Its caring people in the claims office have been readily available to talk to me and my providers.

But in January, United Healthcare sent me a letter announcing that they were pulling out of the individual California market. The company suggested I look to Covered California starting in October.

You would think it would be simple to find a health-exchange plan that allows me, living in San Diego, to continue to see my primary oncologist at Stanford University and my primary care doctors at the University of California, San Diego. Not so. UCSD has agreed to accept only one Covered California plan—a very restrictive Anthem EPO Plan. EPO stands for exclusive provider organization, which means the plan has a small network of doctors and facilities and no out-of-network coverage (as in a preferred-provider organization plan) except for emergencies. Stanford accepts an Anthem PPO plan but it is not available for purchase in San Diego (only Anthem HMO and EPO plans are available in San Diego).

So if I go with a health-exchange plan, I must choose between Stanford and UCSD. Stanford has kept me alive—but UCSD has provided emergency and local treatment support during wretched periods of this disease, and it is where my primary-care doctors are.

Before the Affordable Care Act, health-insurance policies could not be sold across state lines; now policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges may not be offered across county lines.

What happened to the president’s promise, “You can keep your health plan”? Or to the promise that “You can keep your doctor”? Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health
WSJ -

While you allow the alternative impression, I take it that this is not your own story.

Is the writer under the impression that his or her plan could not have been canceled anyway? Indeed, given that the plan seems like one that wouldn’t be considered to be junk insurance, it seems unlikely that its cancellation was mandated by Obamacare, but rather than the health insurance plan (which has paid out so much more in benefits than it has received in premiums) is simply using the implementation of Obamacare as an plausible excuse to cover its own self-interested actions. Do you know otherwise?

(1) who for almost seven years has fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, a disease with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis;

(2) who has been seeing doctors at the medical center of the University of California, San Diego, and its Moores Cancer Center; Stanford University’s Cancer Institute; and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston;

(3) at a cost to United Healthcare’s PPO Plan of $1.2 million since March 2007;

(4) is losing her coverage because United Healthcare has decided to pull its individual PPO Plan off of the market;

(5) and because her primary care physicians at UCSD will only accept a a very restrictive Anthem EPO (Exclusive Provider Organization) Plan, which won’t cover Stanford;

(6) and because Stanford has decided to accept only an Anthem PPO plan that is not available in San Diego;

(7) and someone — I’m not sure who, or if it was part of the Affordable Care Act, or was a government decision at all — has decided that you can now (or maybe one always could?) limit purchase of plans by county; and

(8) … it’s Obama’s fault?

It seems to me that:

(1) she’s the victim of three business decisions — UHC’s, UCSD’s, and Stanford’s all of which could have (and things like them would have) occurred even before the ACA was enacted; and depending on the history of the “county line” thing, a fourth;

(2) she could probably move to a county where the Anthem PPO plan is for sale — moving being a horrible thing that people sometimes have to do for far less significant reasons than saving their lives — and continue to get Stanford’s treatment;

(3) or, she could try to get separate sponsorship for lower-cost treatment from Stanford and the Houston facility — the sort of thing Republicans often suggest — especially as the Republican National Committee would probably like to keep her alive for decades so that she could continue to complain about how bad Obamacare was to end her almost $200,000/year treatment for a treatment for a disease from which perhaps 99.5 of 100 patients would have died by now;

(4) or, she could go find a job (or marry someone who has a job) that provides Anthem PPO.

But what I find ghastly is the question she didn’t address: how did United Healthcare happen to have the $200,000 per year that it has needed to cover her illness? And the answer is: it let MANY MORE PEOPLE THAN HER DIE:

(1) by rejecting them for insurance due to pre-existing conditions;

(2) by rescinding their insurance contracts due to tenuous and unrelated pre-existing conditions that they failed to report;

(3) by letting annual coverage limits bring an end to their coverage;

(4) or letting lifetime limits of coverage — how did she get past those, by the way? — bring an end to their coverage;

AND THEY CAN’T DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS ANYMORE.

So, I’m really sorry that she can’t get the amazingly wonderful insurance that she once had — and that she probably has to have been either quite wealthy (due to her surviving those coverage limits) or more than simply “extremely lucky” to keep for all this time, but if allowing UHC to make the business decision to force her into one of those options as the price of their not getting to do all of the things that they USED TO do, then I make no apology for favoring that policy.

Are you one of the ones celebrating the cutbacks in food stamps, Carl? Because in balancing her disease against the havoc even $1.2 million of those cuts will create, it’s not too hard to have sympathy for the hundreds of victims that that money can save. And if the moral of the story is that “but she can’t afford it!” — well, then welcome to that very large club.

I hope that she’ll consider arguing for single-payer, which would make the decisions of UHC, UCSD, and Stanford irrelevant (at least for those who can’t pay cash for services.)

Carl Overmyer

Posted November 3, 2013 at 11:02 PM

Not sure for sure how I feel about SNAP to be honest, Greg.

I think it’s incredibly easy to game the system for it, but I know people that have been long term unemployed that could certainly use it and cant legally qualify because they haven’t drained all their converted retirement accounts out yet. I’m not so sure that’s a good thing long term for us as a society or not, it sure isn’t for the individual. Especially if that individual is over 50 and hasn’t worked in over 2 years and may never find full time employment again before eligible for SSI.

I think it’s a poorly a manged program that needs improvement, in really simple terms. It can be very helpful to those who need it but it’s still too easy to take advantage of the system. Honestly I don’t know enough to be able to tell you how to solve that one either.

I actively support food banks on a local level that simply allow those who show up to have it, so I understand it’s need. There’s a lot of local help that can be made available IF more people get involved with connecting the dots of those who throw away perfectly good food and those who need it.

I wish more people would take the time and effort to make that happen.

Sadly the last couple of years I haven’t been able to do as much as I once did in that regard, as I was providing mostly direct logistical support. My health simply hasn’t allowed it.

skallywag

Posted November 5, 2013 at 6:23 PM

“4) is losing her coverage because United Healthcare has decided to pull its individual PPO Plan off of the market ..”

It was not United Healthcare’s decision to discontinue her plan – it was a requirement of the State of California.

lol, wasn’t my comment only my pointer for you to where Skally got it.

It isn’t a big surprise to me they dumped IF they could, which I thought they weren’t going to be able to do, guess I was wrong.

I’m shocked that the state would play favorites with one corporation over another like that however, giving away our tax dollars to one or two insurance companies. I have to wonder about that little revelation in the linked story, makes me wonder how much of this system is gamed from the back end like this.

Given that we seem to be trafficking in anecdotes: here’s another one that I like! The woman who was CBS’s poster child for Obamacare’s badness has learned more about it and become inclined to change her mind. How about that?

April Fool –
“If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you. It hasn’t happened yet. It won’t happen in the future,” Obama told voters on April Fool’s Day, 2010, after the law was signed.

The U.S. Constitution enumerates powers given to the federal government, and it reserves unenumerated powers to the states and the people. In other words, the Framers created a system of dual sovereignty: the federal government possesses specific powers that allow it to govern over certain subject matters, and the states have authority in areas where the federal government’s powers do not reach. In these separate spheres, either the federal government or the state government is sovereign.

The Constitution does not give the federal government the power to criminalize ordinary assault with ordinary chemicals. That is purely intrastate.

And if treaties can be used to circumvent the Constitution’s enumerated limits on federal power and usurp power given to the states under the Tenth Amendment, the American concept of dual sovereignty would be grievously undermined.

If there was ever a reason for public financing of campaigns, look no further than my friend Dean Florez in the Southern SJV (wink to Nikki P.). Who after being made to re-pay $60K in pilfered funds said it was the result of “A misunderstanding of the rules”:

Naturally a gamit of posters from Dan C., Cynthia W. and Mike T. will holler at Greg for again posting the truth, so click the link while you can OJB readers, my comments are certainly to be interpreted as mean spirited, anti-Mexican or my favorite……well I’ll save that.